Louis I. Kahn: The Making of a Room
Early Work
"The Plan - A society of rooms is a place good to live work learn"
"The Room is the place of the mind"
"In a small room one does not say what one would in a large room"
Louis Kahn often spoke of his notion that the first school “probably
began with a man under a tree, and around him the listeners to the
words of his mind.” He designed his rooms around such imagined
conversations embodying the desires of the individuals who would
gather within them.
Kahn’s drawings encouraged his clients to envision the conversations
taking place in his buildings as a slice of real life. Here, a mother scolds
a playful child in their living room, a nun gazes upward in the privacy
of her cell, a family group stands at the entrance of a shopping arcade,
and an assembly of worshippers pray in a synagogue. Even in his
depictions of entire buildings, Kahn peopled his drawings with
anecdotal illustrations that reveal an understanding that the size and
character of a room must be expressive of the conversations that take
place there.
Click on the thumbnail images below for a larger view.
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Mr. and Mrs. H. Leonard Fruchter House
Philadelphia
1951-54, unbuilt
Perspectives of Living Room
Pencil and colored pencil on paper
Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
030.I.A.390.5
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Kansas City Office Building
Kansas City, Missouri
1966-73, unbuilt
Perspective of Plaza Level Entrance to Shopping Arcade
Charcoal on tracing paper
Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
030.I.A.725.309
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Mikveh Israel Synagogue
Philadelphia
1961-72, unbuilt
Perspective of Chapel
Pencil and Negro pencil on tracing paper
Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
030.I.A.615.51
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Dominican Mother House
Media, Pennsylvania
1965-69, unbuilt
Partial Plan, Section, and Perspective of Dormitory Cell
Pencil and Negro pencil on tracing paper
Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical Museums Commission
030.I.A.700.80
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Hurva Synagogue
Jerusalem
1967-74, unbuilt
Section Studies
Graphite and Negro pencil on tracing paper
Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
030.I.A.755.26
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"A room with only one other person could be generative. The vectors of each meet"
"A room is not a room without natural light" |
